Shauna + Tim + 2 Bunnies

Friday, November 18, 2011

Button Mushrooms with Wine Sauce

This is my 200th post! Woo! I've been blogging since 2008, but didn't really get into my groove until this year. I've loved blogging all my home decor and vegan adventures, and I'm glad for all of you that follow them!

Today I'm posting about a side dish and Tim and I learned to make when we both worked at the Outback Steakhouse in college. Oh the irony, a vegan and mostly-vegetarian worked at a steak restaurant for awhile...and honestly it was one of my favorite jobs!

Anyway, one of the sides that they serve are these button mushrooms soaked in a wine sauce, and they are to die for! Tim's dad makes a similar dish so Tim already knew how to make these mushrooms.

The other night, I was hunkering for a dish with actual sauce, so I wanted to adapt the normal process a little bit. The recipe is very simple, it just involves wine, butter, and button mushroom (or crimini). Normally we'd cut up the mushrooms into smaller chunks, but today I kept them whole.

First, pour yourself a glass of wine, because it's only fair to have some while cooking with wine.

Next, get a good chunk of butter going in a saute pan.

Let it melt...

Throw the mushrooms in the pan and toss around, trying to coat all of them with the butter. This is where I usually throw in a little more butter (hey, I never said this was a healthy recipe but mushrooms and wine are great for you!).

Now here is where I switched things up a little. I added a tablespoon or so of flour over the mushrooms and let that cook into the butter for a minute before pouring in the wine. I did this is thicken up the wine in an attempt to make a sauce.

Pour in a enough wine to almost cover the mushrooms. The wine will be soaked into the mushrooms as they cook, so you'll just keep pouring in more wine periodically.

Just let the mushrooms simmer in the wine on medium usually for about twenty minutes total. Make sure to keep checking on them, stirring and adding more wine when needed.

Towards the end I added just another pinch of flour, but it definitely wasn't needed. My sauce thicken up quite a bit, to the point where there almost wasn't any at the end.

Eventually, completely under your own opinion, the mushrooms are done! I served mine with a side of quinoa and kale and on top of a baked potato drizzled in balsamic vinegar (if you've never put balsamic vinegar on a baked potato before, do it now!).

YUM! I've been putting my water in a Perrier bottle lately to pretend that I'm in Paris while we eat. It's almost working...